Houston Metro police help out at inauguration

By Dug Begley

Updated 11:12 am, Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Houston buses and trains ran their regular schedule for Martin Luther King Jr. Day while Metro police officers performed a unique duty more than 1,300 miles away.

Eight officers and Metro's assistant chief spent Monday in Washington for President Barack Obama's inauguration, helping with security and crowd control on the city's transit system. About 700,000 spectators converged on the capital for the event.

Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority officials paid for travel and lodging for the Houston officers. The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County paid the officers' salaries, but officials said the roughly $6,300 is money well spent.

Houston often attracts large events, such as the Super Bowl, that put throngs of people on public transit. Having officers versed in crowd control with their experience in Washington is helpful, Rodriguez said.

Fourteen agencies around the United States joined Metro in helping Washington with transit security, Metro officials said. A total of 150 officers were out on the rail lines and at D.C. stations.

Metro police also assisted with the inauguration four years ago, the first time they were invited. At the 2009 event, Metro police officer Eliot Swainson saved a woman's life and kept transit running.

A woman fell onto the train tracks hours before the inauguration festivities were set to start. Swainson shoved the woman into a crevice as a passing train came, saving her.

Had the woman been hit, officials said it would have crippled transit downtown as hundreds of thousands of spectators descended on the area.

None of the 10 officers who worked the 2009 inauguration returned this year, Rodriguez told Metro board members, so others could have the training opportunity.